GIFT   OF 


HE  SPIRIT  OF  A  DISCIPLE 


WILLIAM    E.    CADMUS 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  A  DISCIPLE 


WILLIAM    E.    CADMUS 


DELIVERED  SEPTEMBER,  1911 

AT  THE  FIRST  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCH 

OAKLAND,  CALIFORNIA 


*•*• 


WOOD    &    COWDREY 

PUBLISHERS 
876    BROADWAY 
OAKLAND,  CAL. 

September,  1911 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  A  DISCIPLE 


"Be   not  ye   called   Rabbi:    for,  ppe,  is*  your 
Master,  even  Christ;  and  all  ye  'are1  breth 


HESE  words  come  from  a  chapter  of 
contrasts;   a  chapter   which   shows  the 
difference  between  profession  and  con- 
fession, between  a  gospel  of  formalism 
and  a  gospel  of  faith. 

This  chapter  reveals  more  passion  than  any 
other  address  of  Jesus.  His  feeling  is  so  intense 
that  it  expresses  itself  in  vituperation.  He  who 
charges  his  disciples  to  call  no  man  "fool,"  calls 
the  Pharisees  "hypocrites,  fools,  blind,  serpents, 
vipers,  and  the  damned  of  hell."  Such  terms  as 
these,  in  a  calm  nature  like  that  of  Jesus,  signify 
unspeakable  intensity  of  passion. 

The  reason  is  evident.  He  is  dealing  with  his 
gospel's  greatest  enemy.  This  enemy  was  not 
the  lust  of  the  harlot;  or  the  ignorance  of  the 
multitude,  or  the  carnal  weaknesses  of  sinful 
flesh.  He  was  very  tender  in  dealing  with  all 
these.  They  responded  to  treatment.  But  the 
self-satisfaction,  the  spiritual  hardness,  the  pride 
of  intellect,  the  flinty  and  unsympathetic  spirit 
of  the  statute-bound  Pharisee  would  not  respond 
to  treatment.  It  never  has  and  it  rarely  will.  It 
is  dry  rot  and  leaves  the  soul  unfertile  in  spite 
of  the  sunshine  of  divine  love  and  the  rain  of 
divine  mercv. 


7403S7 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    DISCIPLE 


Jesus  could  do  nothing  with  a  set  of  disciples 
who  would  be  influenced  by  the  Pharisee.  His 
denunciation  of  his  truth's  greatest  enemy,  and 
his  '.consent  reminder  to  his  disciples  to  avoid 
.the  hidden  rock,  of  Phariseeism  are  very  plain. 
'He/wis^hes  tbvfit  his  disciples  not  to  be  monoliths 
of  self-satisfaction,  calling  the  world's  attention 
to  the  inscription  of  their  self-praised  virtues, 
but  to  be  servants  of  men,  flexible,  human,  full 
of  feeling,  and  progressive. 

He  therefore  sets  forth  in  the  verse  we  have 
read  the  preeminent  qualities  of  a  disciple.  They 
appear  in  three  commands  or  assertions. 

1.  "Be  not  ye  called  Rabbi,"  a  command  to 
simplicity. 

2.  "For  one  is  your  Master,  even  Christ,"  a 
suggestion  to  obedience. 

3.  "And  all  ye  are  brethren,"  an  assertion  of 
unity. 

In  these  three, — simplicity,  obedience,  unity, — 
we  find  the  preeminent  qualities  of  a  disciple. 
Let  us  consider  them  in  their  order. 

1.  "Be  not  ye  called  Rabbi."  A  command  to 
simplicity  and  humility.  The  Pharisees  loved 
PLACE.  They  chose  the  uppermost  seats  at 
feasts.  They  were  fond  of  names.  They  loved 
greetings  in  the  market  and  to  be  called  of  men, 
"Rabbi,"  "Rabbi."  It  was  a  term  of  honor. 
It  indicated  intellectual  superiority,  dialectical 
subtlety,  statutory  wisdom.  Therefore  the  Phar- 
isee loved  the  name.  He  longed  to  be  called 
pious,  so  he  prayed  ostentatiously  in  public 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A   DISCIPLE 


places.  He  longed  to  be  thought  wise,  so  he 
listened  for  the  appellation  Rabbi.  He  was  not 
pious  in  reality.  He  was  not  wise  in  reality. 
He  did  not  care.  He  was  content  with  the 
form,  even  if  he  did  not  have  the  fact. 

But  Jesus  did  care.  He  wanted  the  substance, 
as  well  as  the  shadow.  He  wanted  his  disciples 
to  cease  being  hypocrites,  to  be  real  inside,  as 
well  as  outside.  He  was  not  contented  with  a 
mere  name.  Therefore  he  said,  "Be  not  ye 
called  Rabbi."  It  was  only  another  way  of  say- 
ing, "My  servants  must  be  humble,  simple;  not 
grasping  after  titles,  but  seeking  after  truth." 

In  spite  of  this  warning  Christendom  has  con- 
fused the  Master's  work  with  names.  How 
much  of  our  sectarianism  is  but  a  division  on 
names?  And  when  in  their  bigotry  the  church 
confounded  Orthodoxy  and  Christian,  claiming 
no  man  was  a  Christian  who  denied  its  creed, 
again  we  see  the  Pharisee,  loving  to  be  called 
"Rabbi,"  and  because  he  was  clothed  with  brutal 
power,  martyring  those  who  denied  his  title. 
What  was  Nero's  flame,  or  Torquemada's  ax, 
or  Bloody  Mary's  scaffold  but  pharisaic  Caesar- 
ism  righting  for  a  form  and  a  name  and  the 
selfish  control  these  were  supposed  to  confer? 
What  a  Gileadite  readiness  to  slaughter  all  who 
cannot  say  "Shibboleth!" 

Division  on  a  mere  name  or  form  comes  from 
the  Pharisee  and  not  from  Jesus.  Had  forms 
or  names  been  essential  he  would  have  supplied 
them.  If  there  was  anything  fundamental  in 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   A  DISCIPLE 


the  form  of  the  eucharist  or  the  form  of  baptism, 
he  would  have  made  it  clear.  But  he  who  con- 
demned the  Pharisees  for  formalism  was  not 
likely  to  tie  his  imperial  truth  in  peasant  shack- 
les. He  was  the  foe  of  empty  form.  He  was 
the  most  uncompromising'  foe  of  empty  form  the 
history  of  the  world  produces.  He  wanted  men 
to  love  God  and  to  be  brethren  one  to  another. 
He  leaves  to  the  sense,  and  to  the  temperament 
of  the  individual,  and  of  the  times,  hoiv  they 
shall  worship  God  and  how  men  shall  serve  one 
another. 

This  is  the  raison  d'etre  for  his  command  to 
humility  and  to  simplicity.  Humility  keeps  the 
servant  teachable,  so  that  he  may  learn  more  to 
teach.  Simplicity  creates  a  hatred  of  caste- 
creating  distinctions.  It  does  away  with  order 
of  precedence  at  feasts,  and  makes  the  soul  ap- 
proachable, understandable;  it  destroys  mystery. 
Jesus  was  the  champion  of  simplicity.  His  truth, 
like  the  mountain  and  the  sea,  awakens  confi- 
dence because  comprehensible.  The  child  under- 
stood Him. 

But  could  a  child  understand  the  Pharisee? 
Undoubtedly  not.  But  he  could  baffle  the  Phar- 
isee, as  did  the  simple  questions  and  answers 
of  Mary's  child  in  the  temple.  Mary's  child 
asked  for  truth.  The  Pharisee  offered  him  form, 
and  was  perplexed  and  confounded  because  his 
form  could  not  frame  the  truth.  I  once  stood 
on  a  height  at  Saranac  viewing  one  of  the  most 
magnificent  rainbows  God  ever  painted  on  a 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    A   DISCIPLE 


cloudy  canvas,  as  it  arched  above  the  beautiful 
lake.  I  seized  my  camera.  I  must  possess  the 
rainbow.  But,  when  developed,  the  picture 
showed  a  barely  distinguishable  curved  line 
against  a  dark  background.  The  beauty  was 
wholly  gone ;  all  color,  all  proportion  and  vast- 
ness  of  the  original  scene  was  lost;  only  a  hair- 
line, a  mere  circular  form  in  a  field  of  black. 
So  against  the  world's  ignorance  and  dark 
despair  Jesus  spreads  the  spiritual  arch  of  a 
living  hope,  quivering  with  the  sensitive  colors 
of  love,  of  joy,  of  peace,  of  gentleness,  of  good- 
ness, of  faith,  and  of  self-control.  A  Pharisee 
seizes  his  camera,  attempts  to  photograph  the 
radiant  light  of  the  gospel,  the  eternal  glory  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  what  does  he  get?  A  mere 
form,  a  hairline  against  a  sea  of  black!  In  his 
own  vast  self-delusion,  he  becomes  convinced 
that  his  little  self-made  form  is  a  fitting  repre- 
sentation of  the  beauty  and  vastness  of  the  orig- 
inal. A  child  can  see  the  Pharisee's  blunder. 
But  not  he  who  would  rather  be  called  Rabbi 
than  behold  the  Shekinah  of  God! 

But  are  we  much  better?  What  folly  has  led 
us  to  formulate  intellectual  sophistries  into  dog- 
mas, which  we  apologize  for  by  asking  men  to 
"believe  according  to  the  measure  of  their  under- 
standing of  them?"  The  Pharisees  are  not  the 
world's  only  formalists.  There  have  been  times 
when  Nicaea  and  Chalcedon  and  Westminster 
and  Trent  usurped  the  place  of  the  personality, 
and  exorcised  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ.  There 


8  THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE 

was  a  time  when  Hodge  and  Heaven  were  inter- 
changeable equivalents.  But  all  attempts  to  set 
limits  to  divinity  are  sure  to  be  outgrown.  When 
men  can  define  life,  or  set  bounds  to  light,  or 
put  a  q.  e.  d.  after  spirit,  they  will  frame  a 
theology  large  enough  to  contain  religion. 

"Nothing  is  more  simple  than  greatness ;  in- 
deed, to  be  simple  is  to  be  great,"  said  Emerson. 
And  in  his  gospel's  simplicity  Jesus  shuns  the 
Rabbism  of  the  scribe,  and  leaves  a  truth  too 
great  for  names.  Hence  he  says,  "Be  not  ye 
called  Rabbi.  In  the  great  school  of  my  truth 
all  learners  are  teachers,  and  all  teachers  are 
learners." 

2.  "One  is  your  Master,  even  Christ."  A 
suggestion  to  obedience.  The  second  element  in 
the  spirit  of  a  disciple  is  obedience,  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  supremacy  of  Jesus  Christ.  "Be  not 
ye  called  Masters,  for  one  is  your  Master,  even 
Christ."  The  disciple's  danger  is  great  when  he 
arrogates  to  himself  the  functions  which  belong 
to  his  master ;  when  he  mistakes  the  keys  of  the 
kingdom  for  the  kingdom  itself. 

"Be  not  ye  called  Master,  for  there  is  but 
one  Master."  Jesus  Christ  will  not  yield  his 
supremacy  to  any  man,  or  to  any  institution. 
The  church  which  professes  to  possess  it  as  a 
piece  of  merchandise  finds  the  spirit  fled,  the 
empty  shell  alone  remains.  In  our  Christian 
faith  there  is  but  one  master,  one  authority,  one 
infallibility.  It  is-  not  the  church,  or  the  priest, 
or  the  people,  or  the  Bible,  or  the  ordinance,  or 


THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE 


the  creed,  or  the  deed.  It  is  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ  alone.  He  is  the  autocrat,  the  one 
authority,  the  untaught  teacher  of  the  taught. 
Because  he  is  the  express  image  of  the  Father, 
the  elements  of  spiritual  perfection  personalized, 
he  therefore  is  the  sole  master  at  whose  feet 
his  disciples  must  sit  if  they  would  truly  see 
the  face  of  God,  and  truly  know  the  heart  of 
God. 

Yet  he  is  a  Csesar  without  Csesarism,  an  auto- 
crat without  autocracy.  His  kingdom  is  not  a 
despotism.  His  claim  to  the  obedience  of  his 
disciples  rests  in  his  perfections  and  in  his  serv- 
ices, rather  than  in  his  will.  He  woos  us  into 
obedience.  He  does  not  ivill  us  into  obedience. 
He  is  our  Master  by  his  preeminence  and  by 
our  election,  not  by  statutory  compulsion.  We 
may  reject  or  we  may  accept  as  we  will.  He 
does  not  force  our  wills.  He  never  invades  the 
personal  rights  of  any  man.  He  never  asks  men 
to  surrender  their  wills,  to  call  themselves  crea- 
tures of  the  dust,  or  to  abandon  the  control  over 
their  own  destiny.  Men  must  choose  him,  if 
they  choose  at  all,  because  he  is  their  best  teacher, 
he  is  their  wisest  guide,  he  is  their  greatest  lover, 
he  is  the  highest  form  of  our  personal  life.  Let 
men  follow  him  because  He  is  the  Way,  the 
Truth,  and  the  Life.  For  these  reasons  alone 
does  he  claim  men.  He  will  not  usurp,  like  a 
Csesar,  a  man's  control  of  himself. 

He  will  not  even  assume  control  of  a  man 
who  offers  to  resign  his  own  will.  He  will  not 


10  THE   SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE 

allow  any  man  to  abdicate  the  throne  of  his 
own  personality.  Sometimes  men  may  wish 
Jesus  would.  But  he  could  not  if  he  would. 
Not  even  the  omnipotence  of  God  Himself  can 
save  us  the  necessity  of  choosing  for  ourselves. 
It  is  our  part  in  forming  our  characters.  Light 
and  darkness  are  before  us,  we  must  choose  for 
ourselves.  Love  and  hate  are  before  us,  we 
must  choose  for  ourselves.  Christ  and  anti- 
Christ  are  before  us,  we  must  choose  for  our- 
selves. 

We  cannot  by  any  possibility  even  defer  the 
choice.  If  we  do  not  choose  consciously  we 
choose  unconsciously.  We  cannot  even  choose 
at  once  and  have  done  with  it.  No  profession 
of  a  creed,  or  acceptance  of  a  covenant,  or  con- 
fession before  men,  will  finally  settle  the  matter. 
Every  day  and  every  hour  by  conscious  act,  and 
even  more  by  unconscious  act,  are  we,  must  we, 
do  we  make  choice  between  good  and  evil, 
Christ  and  anti-Christ.  Sometimes  it  is  one, 
sometimes  the  other,  and  character  is  both  the 
cause  and  the  effect  of  our  various  choosings. 
The  path  to  character  is  hard,  narrow,  and  the 
most  difficult  thing  in  the  world  of  attainment. 

O  what  strayings  from  the  truth  have  been 
caused  by  our  failure  to  understand  Christ  here ! 
In  an  honest  consecration  we  have  tried  to  put 
on  him  the  task  we  alone  can  perform.  We 
have  asked  him  to  remove  the  temptation  which 
will  never  be  removed  except  by  our  persistent 
choice  of  the  good.  He  has  offered  to  teach, 


I 

THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE  11 


but  we  have  asked  him  to  do  the  learning  also. 
"We  have  not  yet  resisted  unto  blood,  striving 
against  sin."  So  we  have  grown  weary.  Find- 
ing the  perpetual  effort  to  faith  so  burdensome, 
men  have  taken  to  forms.  Forms  are  so  much 
easier,  and  the  task  could  be  called  done.  So 
the  church  made  merchandise  of  virtue.  It 
offered  character  for  the  repetition  of  prayers, 
the  doing  of  duties,  the  buying  of  indulgences. 
The  church  made  a  mechanism  of  faith,  and 
sought  to  create  peace  of  heart  by  a  machine. 
For  a  while  the  self-deceived  world  thought  it- 
self content.  They  preferred  the  easily  fulfilled 
dictum  of  the  church  to  the  proffered  Master- 
ship of  Christ.  As  Henry  Drummond  says,  "It 
was  a  comfortable,  credulous  rest  upon  author- 
ity, not  a  hard  earned,  self-obtained  personal 
possession.  Truth  never  becomes  truth  till  it 
is  earned."  Personal  moral  responsibility,  per- 
sonal momentary  choice  is  the  only  path  to  the 
true  peace  of  God.  Man  must  choose  for  him- 
self. Christ  is  not  his  master  here.  If  he  could, 
though  he  cannot,  the  choice  would  have  no 
moral  value  for  us.  But  He  will  not  and  cannot 
trespass  and  take  from  us  the  care  of  doing 
what  we  must  do  for  ourselves. 

In  an  infinitely  larger  and  truer  sense  is  Jesus 
Christ  our  Master.  He  masters  us  like  the 
beauty  of  the  flower,  like  the  majesty  of  the 
mountain,  or  the  infinitude  of  the  stars.  It  is 
the  sublimity  of  his  truth,  the  sacrifice  of  his 
spirit,  the  charm  and  unselfish  love  of  his  per- 


12  THE    SPIRIT    OF    A   DISCIPLE 

sonality  which  master  us.  A  dull-brained  woods- 
man may  be  utterly  unmindful  of  the  beauty  of 
the  flower;  a  closed  eye  be  wholly  unmoved  by 
mountain  and  by  star.  To  such  they  are  as  if 
they  did  not  exist.  So  a  sodden  soul,  steeped 
in  self,  will  not  be  mastered  by  the  utmost  sacri- 
fice and  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  To  such  he  is 
not  Master.  It  is  only  as  the  man  by  perpetual 
resolution  of  his  own  nature  holds  himself  in 
companionship  with  what  he  knows  of  Christ 
that  he  becomes  mastered  by  Him.  A  man  is 
mastered  only  by  that  to  which  he  holds  him- 
self in  subjection,  through  free  acts  of  attention 
and  of  desire.  What  does  not  hold  my  attention 
or  my  desire  cannot  claim  me.  Whatsoever  does, 
by  those  acts,  possesses  me.  If  my  attention  and 
my  desire  are  claimed  by  lust,  then  lust  works 
the  coarsening  of  my  nature  as  immutably  as 
the  force  of  gravitation.  If  the  love  of  Christ 
claims  our  attention  and  our  desire,  then  we 
are  mastered  by  his  spirit  as  surely  as  the  glow 
of  the  morning  absorbs  the  dark. 

"One  is  your  Master."  The  word  didaskalos, 
from  which  "master"  is  translated,  really  signi- 
fies "teacher."  But  not  teacher  in  any  modern 
sense.  Today  the  teacher  may  teach  and  neither 
the  scholar,  nor  even  the  teacher  himself,  follow. 
A  physician  will  not  always  take  his  own  medi- 
cine, or  the  patient  either.  He  may  pour  it  down 
a  knothole  in  his  chamber  floor,  as  did  a  Hing- 
ham  boy,  after  the  doctor  had  gone  away.  Yet 
still  lived  to  hear  his  mother  praise  the  medi- 


THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE  13 

cine,  although  she  wondered  what  made  the 
plaster  yellow  over  the  sitting  room.  But  with 
the  ancients  a  teacher  not  only  taught,  but  he 
must  also  be  an  embodiment  of  his  own  teaching. 
A  scholar  not  only  learned,  but  he  was  expected 
to  put  into  daily  practice  the  principles  of  his 
teacher.  The  Talmud  says,  "If  thy  father  and 
thy  teacher  are  drowning,  and  thou  canst  save 
but  one,  then  save  thy  teacher]  for  thy  father 
hath  begotten  thy  body  only,  but  thy  teacher 
hath  begotten  thy  soul."  Thus  with  the  ancients 
the  teacher  became  the  master  also,  controlling 
not  merely  the  thought,  but  through  the  thought 
laying  claim  upon  the  life.  In  this  sense  is 
Jesus  Teacher  and  Master. 

The  cry  of  this  generation  has  been  "back  to 
Jesus  Christ"  and  "forward  in  Christ."  There 
has  been  a  growing  sense  that  religion  has  sac- 
rificed too  much  to  theology.  We  are  feeling 
that  we  have  allowed  forms  and  standards  too 
largely  to  assume  the  place  which  belongs  to 
personal  fellowship  with  Jesus  Christ  and  spirit- 
ual unity  with  one  another.  Our  aim  has  been 
to  eschatological.  We  have  dreamed  that  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  was  a  future  kingdom,  instead 
of  a  kingdom  which  was  to  come  on  earth,  as 
well  as  in  heaven.  Men  have  raised  such  a 
cloud  discussing  the  divinity  of  Christ  that  they 
have  obscured  their  duty  to  Christ.  We  have 
allowed  intellectual  discussion  to  take  the  place 
of  heart  service.  While  fully  recognizing,  by 
ofttime  bitter  experience,  the  laws  of  the  natural 


14  THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE 

world,  it  has  taken  us  longer  to  learn  that  there 
are  also  laws  in  the  spiritual  world;  laws  just 
as  expressive  of  the  divine  nature,  just  as  im- 
mutable, just  as  inexorable  in  the  realm  of  spirit 
as  in  the  realm  of  matter.  Indeed,  we  are  learn- 
ing that  they  are  seemingly  more  inexorable, 
for  it  is  not  so  hard  for  a  man  to  perceive  the 
need  of  prevision  and  provision  against  material 
necessities,  as  to  be  awake  to  the  consequence 
to  his  soul  of  the  apparently  unimportant  moral 
acts  of  his  daily  life.  Just  as  the  sun  and  the 
rain  and  the  soil  claim  obedience  from  the  plant 
as  the  condition  of  its  material  growth,  so  Jesus, 
as  the  representative  and  personalized  form  of 
spiritual  law,  claims  obedience  from  us  his  dis- 
ciples. Let  us  imagine  that  the  plant  had  voli- 
tion and  wilfully  withdrew  from  sun  and  rain 
and  earth.  We  know  it  would  do  so  to  its  own 
destruction.  Even  so  the  disciple  who  does  not 
willingly  yield  himself  to  Christ.  To  withhold 
one's  self  is  to  harm  one's  self.  To  yield  him- 
self is  for  a  man  to  find  his  unrealized  divinity. 
For  any  man  to  disregard  the  mastership  of 
Christ  is  to  cut  off  the  living  stream  which 
irrigates  the  soil  of  his  own  soul.  We  under- 
stand this,  therefore  we  regard  our  divisive 
"isms"  less  and  less.  Dr.  Brand  of  Oberlin  once 
said,  in  an  address  on  the  Creed  and  the  Cov- 
enant, that  "Our  creeds  express  the  theory,  and 
our  covenants  the  life  of  God's  people."  We 
are  learning  that  as  we  penetrate  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  heart  of  Jesus  we  come  nearer 


THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE  15 

to  the  life  of  God.  In  the  words  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  "as  we  dig  down  infinitely  deep  we  all 
meet  in  the  center."  These  mountain  ranges 
and  seas  and  deserts  which  divide  us  are  super- 
ficial forms,  rather  than  the  real,  living,  ele- 
mental, warm  heart  of  the  matter. 

Because  Christ  is  our  common  Master,  it 
grows  less  and  less  possible  for  churches  to  re- 
main divided  one  from  another.  As  we  draw 
nearer  his  heart  the  formalism  which  has  divided 
us,  and  made  us  seek  each  other's  life,  seems 
less  and  less  important.  A  view  from  the 
mountain  summit  erases  the  man-made  barriers 
of  the  valley,  because  it  fuses  small  fields  into 
vast  unities,  and  pours  dignity  around  the  whole 
scene  by  revealing  its  larger  prospects  and  great- 
nesses. So  one  broad  soul  view  of  Christ  makes 
our  little  forms  and  isms  vanish  like  a  leaf 
caught  in  a  tempest,  or  perish  like  the  mud  dam 
of  a  child  before  the  flood  of  a  heaving  torrent 
which  the  mountain  has  caught  fresh  from  the 
clouds. 

3.  And  this  suggests  the  final  element  in  the 
spirit  of  a  disciple.  "And  all  ye  are  brethren." 
The  assertion  of  unity.  The  deep  reason  for 
laying  aside  selfish  individualism,  and  for  becom- 
ing one  in  spirit  and  in  truth  lies  not  in  any 
economic  advantage,  or  administrative  benefit, 
but  in  the  supreme  fact  that  we  are  brethren. 

Yet  this  fact  always  has  been  and  is  doubted. 
It  has  been  doubted  both  intellectually  and  prac- 
tically. Intellectually,  because  men  have  set  up 


16  THE    SPIRIT    OF    A   DISCIPLE 

their  private  interpretations  and  standards,  and 
have  insisted  that  only  those  are  brethren  who 
accept  such  man-made  distinctions.  They  have 
done  this  in  spite  of  the  express  teaching  of 
Jesus  that  the  basis  of  that  brotherhood  is  to 
be  found  in  God's  Fatherhood  and  in  his  com- 
mon mastership,  rather  than  in  men's  ordinances. 
"All  ye  are  brethren."  The  high  and  the  low, 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  wise  and  the  simple 
are  made  one  by  that  annunciation.  Not  that 
the  talents,  or  the  tasks,  or  the  fortunes  of  men 
can  ever  be  made  uniform,  for  these  are  acci- 
dental, rather  than  essential,  The  supreme  fact 
remains  that  when  the  veneer  of  our  caste  and 
pride  and  material  distinctions  of  place  and  power 
and  wealth  is  rubbed  away  it  discloses  a  common 
human  fibre  underneath.  The  only  thing  which 
separates  the  savage  from  the  savant  is  the  cul- 
ture of  heredity  and  environment.  But  many  a 
savage  is  a  better  man  and  truer  to  the  elemental 
spiritual  principles  than  many  a  savant.  We  are 
all  common  clay  at  bottom.  We  regret  to  say 
that  some  of  us  are  seemingly  worse  for  gen- 
erations of  cultural  advantage,  as  the  culture  of 
our  talents  has  been  used  to  sin  more  subtly  and 
to  rob  others  more  legally.  But  in  the  main 
certainly  our  civilization  has  been  an  evolution. 
Yet  we  have  not  risen  so  high,  or  ever  shall, 
that  we  can  despise  those  lower  than  ourselves, 
or  wisely  fail  to  remember  that  we  are  brethren, 
since  one  God  made  us  all,  and  one  Christ  is 
Master  of  us  all.  We  should  not  forget  the 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    A   DISCIPLE  17 

common  pit  out  of  which  we  have  been  dug,  or 
cease  to  remember  that  as  our  human  nature 
approaches  its  diviner  heights  it  recognizes  this 
common  fraternity,  which  makes  mankind  one. 
The  common  Fatherhood  of  God  is  the  evidence 
of  our  common  brotherhood.  To  deny  man  our 
brother  is  to  deny  God  our  Father.  There  is 
no  respect  of  persons  with  Him. 

What  a  heaven  this  earth  would  become  were 
men  to  recognize  and  to  govern  their  daily  con- 
duct by  this  principle !  Would  corporate  wealth 
and  trade  unionism  be  at  war  with  one  another? 
Would  such  vast  and  cruel  disproportions  exist 
between  the  rewards  of  industry  and  talent? 

Lyman  Abbott  has  said,  "Things  are  made  for 
men,  not  men  for  things.  The  function  of  life 
is  the  development  of  manhood,  and  whenever 
society  is  so  organized  that  it  is  destroying  man- 
hood that  it  may  build  up  material  things,  it  is 
organized  in  a  pagan  fashion,  not  a  Christian 
fashion."  The  clash  of  labor  and  capital,  where 
either  is  unjust,  or  of  government  with  selfish 
monopoly,  in  every  civilized  land  gives  warning 
that  if  advancing  intelligence  cannot  receive 
fraternal  justice  by  the  force  of  fraternity  it  will 
claim  it  by  force  of  law.  There  is  not  a  question 
about  God's  providence.  There  is  enough  gold 
in  the  earth  and  enough  land  on  its  surface  to 
yield  every  industrious  and  capable  man  a  living 
without  slavery.  To  receive  this  every  honest 
man  will  agree  is  only  social  justice.  Men  are 
learning  to  demand  it,  to  plan  it  for  each  other, 


18  THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE 

and  all  intelligent  captains  of  industry  are  al- 
ready granting  it ;  for  they  realize  it  is  far  better 
to  be  just  than  that  injustice  should  lead  hungry 
men  into  force,  and  thus  steal  from  the  affluent 
the  fruits  of  their  own  hard-earned  victories. 

It  is  no  idle  word,  it  is  no  trifling  platitude 
that  men  should  heed  the  assertion  of  Jesus  that 
"all  ye  are  brethren."  A  wise  adoption  of  this 
momentous  truth  will  save  the  disruption  of 
homes,  the  wreck  of  states,  and  that  insane, 
fratricidal  war  which  ruins  nations.  The  Phar- 
isees shut  their  ears  against  this  fact,  and  slew 
its  teacher  on  a  cross.  But  in  the  granite  hard- 
ness of  their  hearts,  and  in  that  of  all  their 
descendants  they  have  paid,  ten  million  times, 
the  awful  penalty.  The  soul  which  shuts  itself 
up  against  men  perishes  in  cold  isolation.  The 
life  which  gives  itself  to  men  in  service  and 
suffering  becomes  one  in  a  joyous  divine  unity. 

Memorable  was  the  sight  of  the  disbandment 
of  the  Union  army  in  1865.  Past  the  reviewing 
stand  of  the  President  those  war  scarred  vetrans 
marched.  Ragged  and  haggard  with  the  suf- 
ferings through  which  they  had  passed  they  filed 
endlessly  on.  They  were  only  a  part  of  the 
multitude  of  comrades  who  had  fought  by  their 
side.  In  many  a  Southern  grave  those  comrades 
lay  sleeping  on  the  field  of  their  glory,  having 
sealed  their  convictions  with  their  blood,  and 
having  rejoined  the  broken  fragments  of  their 
country  by  their  death.  And  now,  the  war  being 
over,  the  remnants  of  that  broken  host  file  past 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    A   DISCIPLE  19 

their  beloved  president  in  a  final  review.  Those 
who  witnessed  that  scene,  I  am  told,  broke  down 
'at  the  unusual  sight.  In  that  moving  procession 
could  be  seen  the  emaciated  forms  of  those  who 
had  spent  years  in  some  horrible  prison.  Hob- 
bling along  with  his  comrades  came  many  a 
brave  veteran  who  had  left  a  limb  on  some  dis- 
tant field.  No  wound  which  might  disfigure 
the  frame  of  man  but  might  be  seen  in  that  war 
worn  host;  and  upon  the  bodies  of  all  appeared 
those  marks  of  suffering  in  the  world's  greatest 
war  for  liberty,  unity  and  fraternity.  A  million 
men  by  their  servantship  and  sacrifice  atoned  for 
the  crime  against  human  brotherhood,  the  Christ 
doctrine  that  all  ye  are  brethren. 

How  suffering  makes  brothers  of  men  all ! 
The  great  city  is  filled  with  a  jarring  humanity, 
class  against  class,  labor  against  capital,  the 
morally  corrupt  in  a  death  struggle  against  the 
morally  true.  Suddenly,  as  a  thief  in  the  night, 
that  city  is  shaken  from  its  foundations,  and 
consumed  in  an  indescribable  holocaust  of  fire. 
Yet  common  disaster  teaches  them  mutual  serv- 
antship and  love;  rich  and  poor,  strong  and 
weak,  cultured  and  ignorant  forget  the  clash  of 
fratricidal  strife  and  sit  down  in  their  great 
common  suffering  as  brothers  together.  Reviv- 
ing each  other's  hope  they  rise  on  the  ashes  of 
their  desolation  and,  astonishing  all  men,  with 
courageous  and  united  hearts,  rebuild  so  grandly 
as  to  exceed  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world. 

Is   not  that  the   supreme   lesson  of   Calvary? 


20  THE    SPIRIT   OF   A   DISCIPLE 

The  Godman  suffers  that  men  may  find  God, 
and  also  each  other.  His  cross  divinely  declares 
that  among  Christians  there  is  neither  bond  nor 
free ;  riches  nor  poverty ;  servant  nor  master, 
but  all  ye  are  brethren.  The  combinations  of 
the  world  move  on  resistlessly  to  that  final  unity 
where  all  are  one  in  Christ. 

I  who  sit  in  Caesar's  seat 

Am  God's  child. 
Yon  peasant  toiling  at  my  feet 

Is  God's  child. 

In  veins  of  crimson  or  of  blue, 
A  common  blood  goes  coursing  through. 
I  serve  him  by  heart  and  brain, 
He  serves  me  by  heart  and  hand. 
Hand  brings  me  the  golden  grain 
Brain  gives  him  a  peaceful  land ; 

While  heart  to  heart 

Loves   each   other, 

Brother    serving    brother, 

Children  we 

Of   one    Divinity. 

"Be  not  ye  called  Rabbi :  for  one  is  your 
Master,  even  Christ ;  and  all  ye  are  brethren." 
Herein  is  expressed  that  simplicity,  obedience, 
and  unity  which  are  the  true  spirit  of  Christian 
discipleship :  in  our  outward  forms,  simple ;  in 
our  inner  life,  obedient  to  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ,  our  Teacher  and  Lover:  in  our  attitude 
toward  others,  united  and  fraternal,  sharing  our 
sorrows  and  successes.  Hereby  shall  we  mani- 
fest Him  in  whom  is  Life,  and  whose  life  is 
the  Light  of  the  world. 

Preached  at  Marietta,  as  retiring  Moderator  of  Con- 
gregational Conference  of  Ohio,  May  15,  1906. 

Also  in  Elyria,  May,  1906;  Peoria,  111.,  July,  1910; 
Lexington,  Mass.,  October,  1910;  First  Church,  Oak- 
land, Cal.,  September,  1911. 


PROGRESS  PRESS 

OAKLAND,  CAU 


Photomount 
Pamphlet 

Binder 
Gaylord  Bros. 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

PAT.  JAM  21, 1908 


YC   15807 


740227 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


